Talk:Voltolini - Thank you Bernd

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Thank you Bernd - Marco Voltolini

Test cut in Italian amethyst. This features both a "bubble" and a hemicylinder on a side
This is a rendering for "girasol quartz" (an opalescent variety of quartz) showing an alternative, with a much different L/W and three "bubbles".


I was once in a minerals&gems show and I saw a stone cut in a similar fashion than the one I'm presenting here. It was both simple and extremely elegant. I then knew that the author of that design was Bernd Munsteiner, a true giant in the world of gem cutting. I don't really know how his angles and details are, so the design I present here is my own version of his idea. As you can see from the diagram there is a girdle around the stone that avoids knife edges and makes the work of you friendly stone setter easier.


Cutting is not as easy as you might expect because it's so different from the other diagrams. Study the diagram well and you'll have no problems, but don't rush cutting this without understanding well how it works in advance! After that you need to pre-cut the base, carve your bubble and/or different features, finish to cut the base (this to get rid of the chipping resulting from the carving), transfer to another flat dop and cut+finish the "crown". Ah, the size of tier 3 will decide how thick your final stone will be (plus the girdle thickness), if you cut a large tier your resulting stone will become thicker accordingly, so pay some attention here as well.


Another advantage of this design is that you can take advantage of those beautiful, large, but flattish pieces of rough, where a conventional cut would be too deep to provide a decent weight recovery, and you don't want to trim the piece to cut a few small stones... And what about that long and flat piece of rough you have no idea how to cut it to get a single cut gemstone? Have a look at the rendering on the right, where this design has been rendered for a long piece of quartz in one of the variations possible for this design.


How you can see there's plenty of opportunities besides the "classical" version of Munstainer featuring a single bubble (and thanks to him for this amazing design concept). As you see in my amethyst I added a hemicylinder to get a little more complexity.